Al Qaeda busted...
Category: News Commentary...
Posted Monday, March 03, 2003 at 02:21 PM [GMT-6]

I don't know how big the capture of Al Qaeda ringleader Khalid Shaikh Mohammed really is — it sounds significant — but I can't help but wonder: is there any place in the world you'd rather NOT be right now than in his sandals? I mean, if ever there was a time to employ the old cyanide-in-the-false-tooth spy trick, it was 30 seconds before he became the sole property of the good old USofA under the up-close-and-personal supervision of CIA PsyOps and the rest of those good folks who have vays of making you talk.

The pop poll of the day on CNN Headline News is "Should suspected 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed be tortured if it helps investigators get more information about planned attacks against the United States?" When I last checked, at around 4:00 p.m. CST, the vote was 75% in the "Yes" camp.

Torture comes in many flavors. I was tempted to write that torture is in the [missing] eye of the beholder, but that's just tacky. There is a wide range of "stimuli" to which one can be subjected that would make one significantly disposed to doing whatever is necessary to ensure that exposure to such stimuli be brought to a speedy halt. Such stimuli need not be so vulgar and crude as attaching a car battery to various delicate extremities or employing a Craftsman Cordless Drill in a way never contemplated by its designers. For some, a few hours of exposure to the "Anna Nicole Show" would have them gushing state secrets like trailer trash talking to Maury. For others, the mere threat of having to listen to Al Gore's speech about inventing the internet would do the trick.

But a fellow like Khalid is bound to be trained to be impervious to such admittedly aggressive, bleeding-edge techniques. We know it and the CIA knows it. This calls for special measures, above and beyond what would normally be within the bounds of acceptable human mores...even for war criminals. Yes, this calls for...Michael Jackson.

I suspect that Mr. Mohammed is singing like a bird right about now. And from my perspective, if this is what it takes...this is what it takes.